Researchers Say More Americans Than Ever Before ‘Have No Religious Preference’

Another survey is telling us what we already know: The number of Americans who are not religious is on the rise. Researchers from University of California, Berkeley and Duke University went through the recently-released results of the biennial General Social Survey and found that…

While some types of Americans identify with an organized religion less than others, Americans in almost every demographic group increasingly claim “no religion” since the trend began to accelerate in 1990.

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This continues a trend of Americans disavowing a speciﬁc religious affiliation that began in the 1950s but has accelerated greatly since 1990.

Perhaps even more noteworthy: No matter how they sliced the population, every demographic group lost some religiosity since 1990 — many by huge margins:

Keep in mind that “atheism” isn’t necessarily growing at the same rate. We’re still a paltry 3.1% of the population. But the number of people who are giving up organized religion is higher than ever and that’s certainly something to be grateful about.